


Tin Toys

by moon_custafer



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Case Fic, Everybody must get stoned, Gen, I handwave a lot of medical stuff, Lost in Translation, Post-War, Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, and a lot of technical stuff, beach party, mild period-typical racism (mostly implied), wild hallucinating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-01-05 04:37:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 14,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18358763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moon_custafer/pseuds/moon_custafer
Summary: “Shouldn’t you two have an American officer as liais— never mind, you can see for yourselves there's something phony going on around here."Yaz couldn’t really say she was surprised that the Doctor’s planned beach trip had gone off-course from the start; but now it was the middle of the night, in America, and a crowd of people were acting very strange.





	1. Chapter 1

_Saturday, July 3rd, 1948_

Graeme and Ryan were spending some granddad-and-grandson time, and the Doctor had taken it into her head to visit Einstein:

“I haven’t seen him in a while; and if we visit him at Princeton we can all go to the beach. Albert _loves_ sailing.”

“Yeah, but this is mid-20th century we’re talking about, right? Am I going to have to be Mexican again?”

“Not in Princeton.”

“Wait, was the Jersey Shore in those days anything like American reality tv? It wasn’t, was it? Am I going to have to see Albert Einstein with his shirt off?” But in the end Yaz had decided she couldn’t pass up the trip. Torn between the opportunity to dress retro without drawing attention, and the horror of having to wear nylons, she'd settled on high-waisted trousers and a blouse with shoulder pads.

“Beach,” said the Doctor, handing her a straw boater as they left the TARDIS, and placing a similar one on her own head.

* * *

“Well, said Yaz, looking around. “At least you got the season right?"

"It's not Princeton, I'm afraid." The Doctor licked her index finger and held it up to the air. "I think it's somewhere on Long Island. Not so far off."

"Doctor, it's the middle of the night."

They were on a street-corner. The buildings around them were brick or wood, with storefronts bearing names like KOEHLER & SONS ELECTRICAL or AL’S LUNCHEONETTE & FISHING TACKLE. None of the buildings were over three storeys, so far as Yaz could see. The place seemed to be a small town or quiet neighbourhood— well, maybe not that quiet—

She heard confused shouting from the next street, and tensed as several people, some in pajamas and some in regular clothes, came hurrying up, their faces pale in the light from the streetlamps above them.

“There’s a—there’s a giant woman out there!” one man yelled as he ran towards them. “Like an Amazon attacking!”

“Now _this_ I’ve got to see,” said the Doctor with enthusiasm, and she took off in the direction the fleeing man had come from. Yaz jogged after and nearly ran into the Time Lord when the latter, having rounded the corner, halted abruptly at the sight that now met their eyes.

* * *

The “giant woman” was quite plainly an advertisement for sun-tan products. She stood beside a turn-off that Yaz guessed led out of town and to the beach, a late-‘forties pinup about seven metres high, smiling and rubbing lotion on one bare shoulder. A spotlight overhung the top of the billboard and haloed the glamourous advert's face. _Betty Grable should sue_ , Yaz thought.

But it was the people around the pin-up's feet that had caught the Doctor’s attention. Two men were clinging to the giant advert’s ankles, one kissing the painted plywood surface, the other gazing upward and shouting “Oh red-hot mama! Oh yeah, you solid gate!” Nearby, several people were kneeling and prostrating themselves before the advert. A woman gazed, weeping, at the giant pinup, murmuring “Oh Mary, mother of God,” while yet another stripped off her own clothes and danced.

A sudden gunshot startled Yaz, and she dropped to the sidewalk, pulling the Doctor with her. Looking around she saw a man in police uniform holding a raised service revolver, his hands shaking.

“Back off!” he was shouting at the billboard. “Leave our town alone, monster!”

“They’re all…. intoxicated?” Yaz asked the Doctor as they both sat up. Without answering, the Time Lord got to her feet and cautiously approached the officer.

“It’s all right,” she said gently, staying just behind his shoulder. “It’s—it’s just publicity for a new science-fiction movie that’s come out.”

“Just an ad?” asked the officer uncertainly.

“Well, yes. It’s called, um, _Invasion of the Giant Swimsuit Models_ ,” said the Doctor. She laid a hand on his arm and he slowly lowered the revolver. “Now, why don’t you put your gun away and go calm everybody down?” The police officer at once began walking towards the crowd still rioting and worshiping around the billboard.

“Settle down, folks!” he called. “It’s just an ad for a movie! You all can buy your tickets once the box office opens.” Confused faces turned towards him and then, each member of the crowd stopped what they’d been doing and began walking towards the centre of town.

“To the box office!” cried the young man who’d been kissing the billboard’s ankle.

“To the box office!” the crowd repeated. Yaz watched in disbelief as they left. Then she turned back to the Doctor:

“Not intoxicated, exactly. Hypnotized?”

“Bit of both, by the looks of it. Something’s got them in a highly suggestible state. This is not good.”

“You can say that again,” said a voice behind them.

The Doctor and Yaz turned around to see a man carrying a grey tabby cat. The cat appeared surprisingly amenable, given the circumstances—her front paws were curled over his shoulder and she was gazing all about her with great interest, like a passenger leaning on the rail of a ship. The man had sandy hair, greying at the temples, and a face that appeared to have been created by slow implacable geological forces. He wore a somewhat rumpled summer suit and a panama hat.

“Hello, I’m the Doctor, and this is—”

“Officer Yasmin Khan.”

Perhaps because she was on edge at being back in 1950s—well, late ‘40s— America, the official rank – with the “probationary” part left off— slipped out before Yaz could stop herself. The man raised an eyebrow and paused slightly before replying:

“ _Lieutenant_ Walter Healy.” He pronounced it “loot-tenant,” like on tv, and gave her a small but not unkind smile. “Formerly of the Army of the United States. It’s OK. Force of habit, I know. Or are you plainclothes police?” he asked. The Doctor seized the opportunity to explain:

“Interpol,” she said, holding up the psychic paper. Yaz hoped that for once it appeared to be an identity document within the bounds of probability. The last few times the Doctor had tried this, it had been on people who were intelligent, highly suspicious, and in one case, illiterate (a guard in 15th-century Spain had refused to give a pass to a document he wasn’t qualified to judge, which— props to him for good policing, but it had been pretty inconvenient at the time). The man squinted at the paper, shifted his cat to the other shoulder and shook their hands.

“Shouldn’t you two have an American officer as liais— never mind, you can see for yourselves there's something phony going on around here."

"When did it start?"

"Yesterday morning, first I noticed. In the beginning they just seemed—" He shrugged, and the cat chirped. "Al, who runs the luncheonette back there, is usually a world-class grouch, but when I asked him to refill my coffee he did it without a word; and then he went down the counter refilling everyone’s cup. Including the people who were drinking orange juice. Most of ‘em didn’t even seem to think that was odd. Then later I saw people trying to follow a traffic cop’s signals when they weren’t driving cars. I only moved out here a couple of years ago, and it’s the long weekend, but still, that isn’t exactly typical behavior for this neck of the woods.”

“When did they fixate on the billboard?” asked the Doctor.

“About half-an-hour ago, I think. I was already awake, but that’s when I decided to get dressed and go check on things."

"And you brought your cat?" Yaz asked, amused in spite of herself.

"Didn't feel safe leaving her. The people affected don't seem violent, exactly, but you never can tell with a crowd how the mood will change. I was going to check on a friend of mine downtown, if you want a lift anywhere.” He nodded towards a two-door sedan that was not new, even in 1948.

"I really think we better had," the Doctor said. "Shall I take your cat while you drive? There's not much room for her on the dashboard."

* * *

Any automobiles Yaz had ever seen from this era were museum pieces, lovingly restored. Healy’s, though clean and well-maintained, was evidently a working vehicle rather than its owner’s pride and joy.

“You can move those things out of the way if you need to,” Healy said to Yaz as she squeezed in and the Doctor took the grey tabby in her arms and climbed into the front passenger seat. Yaz nudged a small suitcase and a coffee tin to one side.

“I think I might have some idea what’s causing it,” said Healy, as he started the motor. “That coffee can in the back, Officer— don’t open it— there’s a specimen inside. Bed caught it in my apartment earlier tonight.”

“You… found something in your _bed_?” the Doctor asked. The man chuckled:

“Bed’s the name of the cat. Long story. That's the other reason I brought her— she walked up to me, all proud of herself, dropped this critter at my feet like it was a rat. If there are more of ‘em about, I want her along."

"When you say _critter_?—"

"I’m not exactly sure if it’s alive, or some kind of gizmo." Healy knit his brow. "Looks like a big roly-poly, but it’s metal. Stopped moving when Bed bit down on it, anyway. I’d have taken it apart with a screwdriver, but it didn’t have any screws. I was taking it to show my friend— she’s a doctor too, or was—runs a second-hand bookshop now. Was hoping she could help make sense of it. Assuming she’s ok.”

Yaz could see his eyes in the rear-view mirror, and there was worry in them. Then she saw the Doctor’s were even more worried:

“Roly-poly?” asked the Time Lord.

“Pill-bug. Not sure what you call’em in England.”

“Wood-louse,” Yaz offered. “Those little things with segmented armour, right?”

“Yaz,” said the Doctor. “Hand me that coffee tin. Now.”

There was a tone in her voice Yaz wasn’t used to hearing. She passed the tin forward, and heard it rattle as the Doctor opened the lid and immediately shut it again.

“Do you know what it is, Doctor?”

“This is very, _very_ Not Good. Healy, are we almost at your friend’s shop?”

“But what is it?” Yaz prodded.

“It’s a cybermat,” the Doctor replied.


	2. Chapter 2

_(Two months earlier)_

The bookshop was laid out like all the other buildings in that new stretch: one of those modern, angled, display windows on one side, with the name of the business, THE BOOK ASYLUM; on the other, one door that led to a staircase to the second floor and one that led into the shop itself— more crowded with shelves, perhaps, than the other neighbourhood businesses. There was the usual counter at the front. The woman behind it looked up, and something about her struck Healy as being a bit less usual, though none of her features were particularly exceptional: she was short and slight; neither young nor old; with wavy dark hair and brown eyes.

“Would you have a copy of _Wind, Sand and Stars?"_ Healy asked. "By Antoine de Saint-Exupery,” he added, pronouncing the name carefully.

“Hm. I don't think so,” said the woman, “but I shall check. There are some books in the back not yet sorted.”

“I don’t want to trouble you. What about _The Wild Swans at Coole_ , by William Butler Yeats?”

“Yeats,” said the woman, “I _do_ have.” She put on the glasses that hung on a chain around her neck, turned pages on the big ledger that sat open on the counter, and ran her forefinger down a column of titles. “It’s on the poetry shelves, but it will probably be faster if I search for you.”

She climbed down from the stool behind the counter and slipped easily past her customer (she was at least a head shorter than him) into the forest of shelves. Healy contemplated the two books that lay open beside the big ledger. One was an edition of _King Lear_. The other appeared to be a German translation of the same play.

“Here is your Yeats,” said the bookshop proprietress, returning with an air of quiet triumph. Healy examined it briefly and got out his wallet. “If you wish to leave one of your cards,” the woman said as she wrapped the Yeats neatly in paper, “I can telephone, should I find a copy of the Saint-Exupery.”

“Name’s Walter T. Healy,” he introduced himself, rather unnecessarily, as he handed her his card; but she smiled up at him:

“My name is Kaufmann.”

As Healy walked to his car it occurred to him that she hadn’t told him her first name, or indicated whether she was Miss or Mrs. Kaufmann. He worried for a moment he might have been too forward, then reminded himself that it had been she who had asked for his name and number.

* * *

The strip of sky between the telephone exchange and the new bank building was flamingo-colored at the horizon, dissolving into smoky lilac as the eye traveled upwards. Walter Thomas Healy was, for the moment, happy. When spring had made sufficient inroads for the weather to be reliable, he’d moved one of the kitchen chairs from his third-floor walkup out to the fire escape; from this vantage point he was presently admiring the sunset and drinking coffee with a shot of whiskey and envying no owner of balcony or terrace.

A cat came up the fire escape; Healy had noticed it around the neighborhood before; it had no collar. It reached him, glanced up into his face, and then calmly went inside as if it needed no invitation, or had received an unspoken one.

Healy was still pretty light on his feet, but he was holding a cup of hot coffee, and by the time he’d scrambled into the kitchen after the cat, the creature was settled on the linoleum in front of the stove, calmly washing its face as though it had lived there all its life.

“Out,” said Healy, pointing to the fire escape. “You can’t move in here.” The cat gave him an amicable chirp and went back to washing its face.

Healy moved to pick it up, and it darted towards the wall opposite the stove, where it flattened itself and disappeared under the pipes of the radiator.

”It’s lucky for you the landlord turned off the heat for the season. You could’ve burnt yourself,” he scolded the cat.

If he hunkered on the floor, Healy could just make out a little pair of golden eyes watching him from beneath the pipes.

Recognizing that the creature had chosen an excellent position and had dug itself in, he decided to wait it out. He stood up with a grunt, retrieved his coffee cup from the fire escape and washed it in the sink, then seated himself on the other kitchen chair with the Yeats he had purchased earlier.

Two hours later, Healy sighed, got up, crossed the room, and added “flea powder” and “can of tuna” to the bottom of the grocery list tacked up beside the phone.

* * *

“Thanks for finding me the Saint-Exupery," said Healy, examining it. "I -- I’d been trying to replace my old copy for a couple of years.”

“I’m actually a little surprised I had it in stock; a very recent book, for my shop.”

Healy glanced around the clean, modern-looking space that contrasted with the books, some with antique bindings.

“Were you the first business to move in here?”

“I set up shop shortly after the row was built, yes. Before that I was still living and working in the city.”

“I suppose there was more competition and less space there,” he said.

“I was a psychiatrist in the city." _**Dr**. Kaufmann, then,_ Healy thought, _not Mrs. or Miss._ "This, you might call it my retirement.”

“Why? I mean, why retire? You don’t look old enough, if you’ll pardon my saying so. And the world isn’t exactly getting any saner.”

"No, it's not." Dr. Kaufmann sighed. “I was so tired. I carried on for a while, but I was nearing a breakdown myself. I needed a change.” She looked around her shop. “Here, people only depend on me to find them the right book.”

“That’s a tall enough order in itself, sometimes.”

She smiled up at Healy:

“I found what you needed, didn't I? And you, what do you do when you’re not buying books?”

"Engineer at Grumman. Moved out here a few years ago when I started working for them."

“Ah. I see why you would like Saint-Ex.”

Healy shrugged:

“He was a good writer. And aircraft interest me, of course.”

“Were you—”

“No. Army, and then got into aeronautics afterwards. Before the war I worked in automobile design.” He turned as he heard the shop door open behind him, and saw a coloured boy about eight or nine years old, with a serious face, enter carrying a book. At the sight of the white man by the counter, he stopped in his tracks, but Dr. Kaufmann nodded at him:

“It’s all right, Austin.” She glanced at Healy and turned back to the child: “Did you come to exchange the book?” Austin nodded.

With an expression that would have seemed grave to anyone not watching her eyes very closely, Dr. Kaufmann took a quarter from a corner of her desk where it sat behind a ledger— not in the cash box— and returned it to her young customer, who handed her back _Ends of the Earth_ , by Roy Chapman Andrews. Dr. Kaufmann opened the ledger, located the title, and crossed out something initialed beside it as Austin went to the shelves and began looking over their contents.

“Interesting way to run a business,” Healy murmured.

“There are times,” replied Dr. Kaufmann quietly, “when I run a business, and then there are times when I run a public library. It is my decision which is which.”

* * *

“Walt, are you and this book store lady... walking out together?"

"Al, nobody has 'walked out together' for twenty years; and she and I certainly aren't doing so now."

"Well, you talk about her like you like her, and she hasn’t got a husband, has she?”

“Not that I know of.” Healy gave the Luncheonette’s owner a wry little smile. “Is matchmaking your other job, or something?”

“You just seem like a lonely guy, Walt.” Al turned his glowering attention to the other end of the counter: “Hold your horses, Jim, you’ll get your coffee in a second!” Jim tapped his spoon impatiently against his saucer but said nothing.

“I get by,” said Healy. “Go refill Jim’s coffee before he breaks something.”

* * *

Healy, jerked awake from anxious dreams by the now-familiar mewing and chirping of the cat who’d moved in with him two months earlier, put out his hand and groped for the small creature he'd begun to find a comfort; only to feel Abednego drop something small and rattling on his chest:

“Mrrp,” she said proudly.

“Ugh, Bed, no!” Healy sat up with a jerk, trying to both switch on the bedside lamp and to brush away the dead… creature? insect? toy? It was metallic, whatever it was, but parts seemed organic as well.

Curiosity overcame distaste, and he gingerly held it under the lamplight as he tried to make out what the object had been before his cat had killed it. The silver thing had no wings that he was able to discern. _If the stairwell and fire-escape doors are both still closed_ , Healy thought, _then Bed can’t have caught it outside. That means it somehow made its way up to the third floor._ The idea made him uneasy.

* * *

_"_ I tried calling the Book Asylum before I left,” Healy said to the Doctor as he drove, “but the phones had stopped working.” They had passed the crowd again who'd reacted to the billboard; and who were now hammering on the box-office window of the local cinema.

“The cybermats must have got at the wiring,” suggested Yaz.

“Or at the switchboard operators,” the Doctor said grimly. She began fiddling with the dial of the car radio.

 _...Godofsky on WHNY-FM,_ came a voice out of a brief burst of static, _bringing music and news updates overnight to listeners on Long Island..._ The announcer sounded smooth and unpanicked as he cued up a recording of Offenbach.

“That station’s in Hempstead,” Healy observed, “about a dozen miles from here.”

“Then the cybermats are still pretty localized.”

* * *

 The blinds were drawn on the windows and door of the Book Asylum. Healy pressed the doorbell and waited.

“Hope Dr. Kaufmann won’t be mad at me for waking her. But then maybe it’d be a relief if she were.” He shaded his eyes and pressed his face to the glass, trying to peer through the gap between the window-frame and the edge of the blind.

Inside someone undid a lock; the shop door opened a crack, and a face peered out. Yaz could just make out one eye and the corner of a mouth.

“Is Dr. Kaufmann here?” Healy asked, puzzled. The woman in the doorway studied his expression for a moment, then made up her mind:

“Hurry,” she said, “come in quickly.”

Yaz and the Doctor crowded in after Healy while the woman watched them closely. A young boy looked out from behind her, then smiled shyly at the sight of Healy.

“It’s Austin, isn’t it?” said Healy to the boy. “And your mother, er—?”

“Mrs. Alexander,” said the woman, relaxing a bit at these signs of recognition. “Dr. Kaufmann’s in.”

They followed her to a back room (Austin looking up curiously at Bed, still in the Doctor's arms) where the shop’s owner sat at a desk with a cup and a large pot of coffee in front of her.

“Mr. Healy,” she yawned, laying her eyes on the tin he carried, “you bring me more coffee?” She wore a cotton print wrap dress Yaz suddenly realized was probably her dressing-gown, or at most this time’s equivalent of a t-shirt and a pair of leggings opaque enough to wear running errands, though to her it looked no less formal than Mrs. Alexander’s skirt and short-sleeved blouse.

“Wait, why were all of you awake in the middle of the night?” she asked, looking around the room.

“Yes!” the Doctor agreed. “Healy, that cybermat was trying to catch you sleeping—”

“—when Bed caught it and the noise woke me.” Bed purred at the sound of her name, and jumped from the Doctor's arms to the bookshop desk.

“I worked the late shift tonight,” offered Mrs. Alexander, “but Austin _ought_ to have been asleep.” She looked suspiciously at her son, who hung his head, and then fished a small object from a pocket of his pajamas. The Doctor leaned forward to look at the assemblage of scavenged wire, glass and batteries held together with rubber bands.

“Did you make that pocket torch yourself?” she asked. “Nice job. Reading in bed?” Austin nodded while his mother sighed. Then he took off the rucksack he wore, and got out a large jar with several air-holes punched in the lid, the kind of jar, Yaz thought, that kids in books used to put fireflies in.

A cybermat was scuttling in a circle around the bottom.

“I thought it was a trilobite,” Austin said quietly.

“He’s been reading about fossils,” explained Mrs. Alexander. “I told him he could take it to show Dr. Kaufmann on the weekend, but when folks in our neighborhood began acting strange, he insisted we come check she was all right.”

“May I?" asked the Doctor, taking the jar from Austin and holding it under a lamp. Healy stooped to peer at it with her.

"No screws or rivets," he murmured. "The way the parts fit together is more like cabinet-joinery than anything I’ve ever seen done with metal. And then other parts of it seem... organic.”

He tapped on the jar and the cybermat pressed its mouth-parts, or what would have been the mouth on most living creatures, against the glass. “Hard to see, but there are three little metal needles that come out there. Saw'em on the one Bed caught." He nodded at the coffee jar he'd brought. "Your specimen's better, Austin. How'd you manage to nab it?"

"Stayed on the bed and set the jar over it when it came out from under."

“He is a bright child,” said Dr. Kaufmann. “As for me, I could not sleep. I was trying to decide whether to take a sleeping tablet, and risk grogginess tomorrow.”

“So,” said the Doctor: “A team of night-shift workers, insomniacs, and cat people. I can work with this—”

“No, but you did not ask me,” the bookshop’s owner interrupted, “what my decision was about the sleeping tablet. I’m afraid I took it just before Mrs. Alexander's and Austin's arrival, and shall be of little use to you for the next few hours."

“You’ll be safe with us here,” said Healy quietly.

"Do the needles inject some kind of venom?" Yaz continued, as Dr. Kaufmann shut her eyes. "Is that what's affecting the people we saw? Or does it exert some kind of direct control?”

“There are different kinds of cybermat,” said the Doctor, still watching the one in Austin's jar. “Some designed to kill humans, some to control them, some to drain off electrical power from machinery. This must be the controlling type: from what we’ve seen, the victims don’t die, are not even physically incapacitated — just highly suggestible.”

Reopening her eyes with effort, Dr. Kaufmann said:

“The effects appear like those of a mild barbiturate, perhaps mixed with a hallucinogen.”

“Yes but,” Yaz interrupted, “they’re all just wandering around obsessing over the first thing that grabs their attention. Whoever’s trying to control them isn’t doing a very good job.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

Austin was just tall enough to rest his chin on the edge of Dr. Kaufmann’s desk, and was doing so, watching the cybermat he’d caught scuttle around in its jar. Bed was watching the silver biomech as well; every so often she’d swat her paw against the glass.

Everyone else was drinking coffee, except Dr. Kaufmann, who’d already had three cups, and the Doctor, who was fiddling with the buttons in her sonic screwdriver.

“What’s that?” Austin asked her, tearing his eyes away from his cybermat to look at the other alien device.

“Screwdriver— high-tech version.”

“Can it take that gizmo apart?” asked Healy with interest.

“Yeah, but it doesn’t need to,” the Doctor replied. “I’m trying to find a frequency that’ll control it, or at least shut it down— without shattering the jar. That’s the hard part.”

“For heaven’s sake don’t let that thing loose again—” Mrs. Alexander warned.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got this,” said the Doctor cheerfully, and pointed the sonic directly at the jar, which sang like a glass harmonica but did not crack. Inside it, the cybermat froze.

Yaz sighed audibly in relief, giving the Doctor and Mrs. Alexander a sheepish smile as they both turned to glance in her direction.

“There,” said the Doctor. “Now—- Dr. Kaufmann? Just try and stay awake a minute more. Have you got a radio in the shop? I might be able to use it to generate a bubble of this same frequency, keep out any more of these that might be around. It’ll buy you time to recover and us time to figure how to help the townspeople.”

“There’s one in the front,” Kaufmann yawned, “on the shelf behind the counter.”

“I’ll get it,” Yaz offered.

“It might be awkward for you to move,” replied the bookshop’s owner. “It’s an old model— pretty heavy— and the cord’s threaded behind a dozen b—-“

“Why don’t I just go to the radio?” The Doctor stood up and made her way through the maze of shelves. Austin followed after, and Yaz, who was already standing, went too. Bed continued to watch the jar for a few moments, then jumped down from the desk and brushed against Dr. Kaufmann’s ankle as the latter closed her eyes again.

“Who are those two, Mr. Healy?” Mrs. Alexander whispered. Healy frowned thoughtfully.

“The Doctor claimed they’re from Interpol and waved some kind of card in my face. But these metal bugs don’t exactly seem like a criminal matter. My guess is they’re something that escaped a weapons lab, and those two have been sent to fix the SNAFU before anyone notices. Though they’re not exactly undercover types.”

”I’d wonder whether Miss Khan was even really Indian,” mused Mrs. Alexander, “except I guess if she were fake, she’d use a different accent and, well, play everything up a bit more.”

”I think she really is some kind of policewoman or military— carries herself like it— but the Doctor...”

”Indeed,” said Mrs. Alexander. Healy smiled wryly.

“I’d say _she_ certainly fits the weapons-lab theory. Officer Khan could be her minder— they don’t usually let those backroom geniuses run around on their own.”

“I was consulted by the police a few times,” Dr. Kauffman murmured sleepily. “Cases where they suspected a psychotic motive. My supervisor had a lot of work to do, and sent me in his place.” Healy reached across and patted her hand:

”Not quite what we were talking about, Doc, but it’s all right. You just rest for now.” 

“Just as well,” Kaufmann continued, “The Professor was a diabetic, and the Chief Inspector was extraordinarily fond of cake...”

“She’s dreaming,” Mrs. Alexander whispered.

”No doubt,” Healy whispered back. “Look, would you mind staying with her a minute? I’ll just go check on our friends from ‘ _Interpol_.’”

”Send Austin back, please, Mr. Healy, if he’s getting into mischief.”

”You bet.” Healy rose, stretched, and strode towards the front of the Book Asylum, where he found the Doctor digging through the back of a radio whose Bakelite case lay face-down on the countertop. She’d already pulled out a vacuum tube and was holding it under Austin’s home-made torch for inspection. Yaz stood nearby, trying not to stare at the parts that had come out of the device.

”Always more bits than I need,” the Doctor was saying, “but never mind, I can make this work.” As Healy watched, she reinserted the vacuum tube, and held that mysterious instrument of hers about two inches from the radio workings. It made a tuning-fork noise and she smiled, closed up the unit and stood it upright again, turning the dials: “Cybermat-jamming equipment is go,” she said to the room. Healy hoped she knew what she was doing. He also wished he could get a look at that device she’d called a screwdriver—

”Lights out,” warned Yaz, who’d turned her attention to the window. “We have passers-by.”

“Let’s hope they do pass by,” Healy muttered. From outside in the street came the sound of footsteps and raised voices. Yaz couldn’t quite tell if the crowd was laughing or angry. She wondered if it was the same lot who’d gathered around the suntan advert earlier, or different people, fixated on who-knows-what.

Peering through a small tear in one of the blinds, she saw a knot of people carrying a struggling figure.

“What a whopper!” someone shouted.

“Biggest sea bass we ever landed!”

“Careful, he’s trying to jump back in the water!”

“We’ve got to hang him up and weigh him, I bet it’ll be a record!”

“They’re attacking someone,” Yaz hissed. “We’ve got to help him—” And before anyone could reply she had already unfastened the chains and bolts and opened the front door.

As she ran towards the townsfolk she heard Healy gasping curses as he followed, and the Doctor telling Austin to stay inside and keep that door shut until they came back; but the mob, even if they seemed loathe to set down their struggling victim, still had her and her friends badly outnumbered…


	4. Chapter 4

“Damn those fools,” muttered Mrs. Alexander. She glanced at the sleeping Dr. Kaufmann. “I’m sorry ma’am.” Then she got up and hurried to the front of the shop: “Austin, you get away from that door!”

“But ma, the Doctor said to guard it—”

“Never mind what she said.” Mrs. Alexander lifted the blind and looked outside. “You go to the back and stay with Dr. Kauffman,” she told her son in a gentler voice. “I’ll mind the door.”

* * *

Yaz stopped, wondering exactly how to confront the group, only to have Healy brush past her and lay a hand on the shoulder of the nearest of the mob.

“Put that fellow down,” the engineer ordered.

“What’s your trouble, Jackson?” asked the youth, his arms still locked about the man’s neck.

“Maybe his fish got away,” someone chuckled. Healy’s brow furrowed and his jaw clenched:

“I’ll not have you lot hurting anybody—”

“ _Lieutenant_ ,” said the Doctor in a low, but firm voice. “They genuinely don’t know what they’re doing. Don’t argue with them – redirect.”

An inspiration struck Yaz.

“Thanks for your help in moving this man to a safe zone,” she said, addressing the townsfolk in a tone of friendly authority. She turned to Healy and continued emphatically: “Let’s get him inside where he can receive medical assistance.”

The people blinked, then the youth whose shoulder Healy had grabbed said:

“This guy’s hurt, mister. Help us get him inside.” Picking up the cue, Healy nodded.

“We’ll take it from here, son.” He swung an arm around the man the crowd no longer perceived as a sea bass, and tried to steer him towards the Book Asylum, whispering in his ear “Play along, we’re getting you away.”

Yaz heard a clatter and looked down to see the pavement scattered with inert cybermats. As she watched, yet another of the metal devices fell out of someone’s sleeve as its fangs detached and hit the ground with a _ping_.

“The signal from the radio is working,” she said.

“They’re all still doped up though,” grunted Healy, holding the man, who continued to thrash in his arms. "Including this fellow."

“Don’t send me back there! I won’t go back! I won’t!” The man stared wildly about him.

“Where does he think we’re taking him?” Yaz whispered.

“It’s 1948,” said the Doctor, quietly. “ _’Back there’_ could refer to several places. All of them bad.” She threw a warning glance at Healy: “Restraining him will just make him more scared.”

“Don’t want him hurting himself,” Healy mumbled, but he relaxed his hold, though he kept his arms around the man. “Steady on, fella,” he whispered. “You’re all right, you’ve just— you’ve just had one too many. Let’s get you inside, you can have a lie-down.”

A dopey smile crossed the other man’s face and he leaned into Healy’s shoulder.

“Oh, boy. Did I get stinko again? Loretta’s gonna be mad.”

Healy smiled and ruffled the other man’s hair:

“We’ll get you home safe, pal. I’ll tell Loretta we were just passing the time, and she can get mad with me if she wants to.” His new friend giggled as Mrs. Alexander cautiously opened the door.

“You’re a bad influence on me, mister— mister.... sorry, forgotten your name...”

“Walt.”

“Pleashed to meet ya, Walt, I’m Bob.” Bob shook hands all round with drunken cheeriness, his eyes widening at the sight of Mrs. Alexander, the Doctor and Yaz. “Walt,” he whispered loudly to Healy. “How’re we gonna explain the dames to Loretta?”

“Friends of mine, Bob.” Healy threw the others a slightly embarrassed smile. “I think we might need Doc Kaufmann’s help here,” he whispered.

* * *

"It doesn’t look like ergotism,” said Kaufmann, examining her patient. It had taken a couple of minutes to rouse her, but once awake she’d pulled herself together remarkably well. She’d asked Bob to sit down, and with a few words had put him into what looked like a trance state. _She must’ve been a pretty effective psychiatrist_ , Yaz thought. “We see the pallor and hallucinations, but not the tremors or the digestive symptoms. I’m still leaning towards a cocktail of mostly barbituates."

“Can you do anything for him?” asked Mrs. Alexander.

”I don’t believe he’s in any danger, except from his own behavior. The drug will wear off, but I cannot accelerate that, any more than I can for myself. I would suggest he sleep it off on the couch upstairs.” She glanced at the Doctor for confirmation, then turned back to the seated man: 

“Bob,” she said kindly, “Can you hear me? You’ve had a long, long day. Why don’t you go upstairs and lie down on the green couch you find there? No one will disturb you, and you can sleep until morning and then return to your home.”

”All right,” said Bob, and he stood up. Kaufmann and the Doctor followed him, but he easily found the stairs and after watching him take the first few steps the psychiatrist let him go alone. Rubbing her temples, she faltered and the Doctor caught her by the elbow and steadied her. 

“You’re not fully recovered. Why don’t we sit?” Kaufmann gave the Doctor a strange look that continued as the Time Lord helped her seat herself on the staircase and then squeezed in beside her.

“What’s the cybermen’s endgame?” the Doctor muttered as she ran her fingers through her long hair and gazed at her blue-serge-clad knees. Dr. Kaufmann leant forward with her chin in her hands, her dark head beside the Doctor’s blonde one. 

“What if none at all?” she asked.

“Cybermats under no cybermen’s control?” The Doctor frowned. “With no controller, there’s no head to decapitate. What kind of mob behaviour might emerge among numerous hallucinating people? Dr. Kaufmann, you’ve studied the human mind—”

“Yes, and knowing how it works doesn’t help.” Kaufmann looked the Doctor in the eye: “What profits it a man to understand his root of his compulsions, to recall the trauma that bred them? Knowing these behaviours are no longer a rational response to his surroundings doesn’t make them go away. As for the understanding psychology of crowds— that’s like understanding the tides. It cannot stop a thing. It only tells me when I ought to flee, and that,” she glanced towards the other room, “I think everyone in this building has learnt, or they wouldn’t presently be here.”

“That’s why you left psychiatry, isn’t it—because treatment lags so far behind diagnosis? You felt guilt at not being able to help others with their—why are you looking at me like that?” the Doctor asked.

The smaller woman gazed up at her warily.

“What language,” she asked, “are you and I, right now, speaking?” The Time Lord did not answer, and Dr. Kaufmann continued: “When you took me aside, you automatically switched to my native tongue. Well, perhaps you simply recognized my accent and wished to put me at ease. But I became curious and decided to test you. In the past two minutes, during a complex discussion, I have twice switched between three languages— and every time I did you switched with a swiftness that passes the most remarkable fluency, although” and here she hesitated, studying the Doctor’s face carefully, “I do not think you old enough to have studied medicine in Europe before the war. But the truly uncanny thing is that you don’t even seem to realize what you do.”

The Doctor leant back against the stairwell wall and gazed at the psychiatrist, admiration and apology mingled in her face:

“I’m sorry— I didn’t mean to alarm...You said you know when to flee a situation. What are your instincts and training telling you about me?”

“That there’s a lot you don’t want to reveal.” Dr. Kaufmann hesitated. “It’s hard to work with that. But no, I don’t think you or your young friend are the source of the danger. Are you asking me to trust you?”

“Pretty much yeah.”

The other woman suddenly laughed.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes. “Your manner is so… informal, sometimes." Serious again, she added: "I'll work with you Doctor; and so far as my nature allows, I’ll refrain from prying into your affairs; but do not mistake pragmatism for trust.”

She looked up in the Time Lord’s face:

”So, your reference to “cyber-men” building and releasing these creatures was true, not a cover?”

“It’s true, I’m afraid.”

“Then I fear I will need to break my promise, and pry just a little. Tell me about these cyber-men.”


	5. Chapter 5

They were gathered in Dr. Kaufmann’s back room again. The Doctor had given a potted history of the Cybermen, with everyone but Yaz gazing at her in disbelief mixed with the knowledge of the truly strange things they had been seeing.

“In conclusion— is anyone hungry?” asked the Doctor. “You know how when you wake in the middle of the night, after a bit your stomach thinks ‘oh, we’re awake now, must be morning, must be time for breakfast?’ Well, it wasn’t the middle of the night for Yaz and me, we were going to go to the beach with Einstein, but I did think we’d be having lunch by now. Anyway,” she finished brightly, as she rummaged through the impossibly roomy pockets of her coat, “I brought some oranges.”

There was a tense silence.

Then Austin stretched out his small hand, paused, looked up at his mother, received the very slightest of nods, and took the orange. The rest of the adults, after exchanging glances, followed suit. Healy was the last, and he hesitated:

“Doctor— given the delusions we’ve seen in other groups in town, how do we know _we’re_ not collectively cuckoo as well? That it’s not, I don’t know, something in the water, and these cyber-mats are just a hallucination?”

“Your cat sees them too,” said Mrs. Alexander. 

“I could take a picture with my phone,” said Yaz.

“That last bit might not be any help in making the situation seem _less_ strange to them,” the Doctor whispered to her companion.

Healy shrugged:

“We might be imagining Bed’s behaviour. Or the pictures.”

“Then it becomes a philosophical problem,” sighed Dr. Kaufmann. “If we doubt our own senses, then no supporting evidence can help, because it too can only perceived by means of our senses. We can choose the more coherent of two explanations, but we still have to take it on faith at some point.”

“What if we all drew a picture of the cybermat without showing each other?” asked Austin suddenly. “Then if we all drew the same thing we’d know we weren’t imagining it.”

“That’s—” Healy began, impressed. Then his face fell again. “No, wait. The trouble is, if we’re drugged, we influence each other with what we say, too. So we might look at each other's pictures and hallucinate they match; but on the other hand, if we try to test it by describing them, we’ll just automatically agree with each other.” 

“But if we’re disagreeing with each other now,” said Mrs. Alexander, who’d been listening carefully to Healy’s argument, “then we _can’t_ be under the influence.”

The Doctor nodded:

“I realize everything I’ve just told you must sound like something out of a radio serial; and it’s good that you’re sceptical about it. Like Mrs. Alexander just said, as long as we’re not automatically agreeing on everything, we know we haven’t been drugged by cybermats. So we keep checking in with each other, talk about what we think is going on around us.”

Healy gave one of his little wry smiles:

“I think I’ll have that orange now.”

“So, if we’re on the same page,” said Yaz, peeling her orange, “and we’re keeping the cybermats away from this place for now— what’s our next move?”

“Finding the Cybermen would be a good start,” said Dr. Kaufmann. “No one’s reported seeing any— what do the newspapers call them?— “flying saucers” on the island. At least, not that I’ve heard—” She looked at Healy, but he shook his head:

“Any rumours that filter down to us from the Air Force haven’t mentioned saucers or little green men— well, not around here, and not recently.”

“The landing doesn’t have to be recent,” said the Doctor. “The Cybermen have been around a long time, leaving dormant spaceships scattered across the planets like unexploded mines.” The Time Lord examined the peel of her orange, which she’d removed in one long spiral strip. Gazing at it pensively, she asked “Has there been any digging lately, around the town? Sewer repairs, that kind of thing?”

“There’s that new housing development on the edge of town,” said Mrs. Alexander quietly. “for veterans and their families. They held the groundbreaking ceremony last month.”

Dr. Kaufmann nodded and Healy snapped his fingers:

“Man alive! She’s right.”

“Best lead I’ve heard yet,” said the Doctor. “Where on the edge? Does anyone have a map of this area?”

“I’ve one in the car,” Healy said, getting up.

“Brilliant. Does anyone have any little pins with flags we could stick in it?”

* * *

Yaz waited at the front of the shop as Healy returned with the promised map, and the suitcase she’d seen earlier in the back seat of his car.

“No pins or flags,” he said as he set it on the counter and undid the lock, “but a drawing compass might be some use.” He removed the little box that presumably contained his draughting tools and went to the back room. Glancing at the remainder of the engineer’s personal effects in the little suitcase, Yaz noted a framed photo of a coltish, teenaged Healy standing beside a woman in black and a little boy about three or four years old. _Stepmum and half-brother,_ she guessed from their relative ages. Curious, she picked it up and saw a second framed item underneath— this one a magazine-cutting of a poem that began _O I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth..._

She started guiltily at Healy’s tread and looked up to see him in the doorway:

“Sorry,” she began. “That was... rude and... unethical,” but Healy only shrugged:

“You did say you were Interpol. Can’t fault you for snooping when it’s your job. And I did leave the suitcase open.”

* * *

“Why can’t any of them just say things straight out?” Yaz muttered to the Doctor when, a few minutes later, she came to look for her companion. The Time Lord studied the spines of the books on a nearby shelf:

“It’s...” she began, and trailed off. “They’re good people,” she tried again, “but Austin is painfully shy, and the adults— I think they’ve all been through a lot in their lives, and they’re a mix of not wanting to be a bother, and not knowing who they can trust. So they... banter.”


	6. Chapter 6

Healy’s old car pulled up by the building site for Meadowtown. A billboard nearby lacked the built-in lamps that had made the sun-tan-oil advert visible at night, but the dawn had brought enough light to read: THIS IS HOW YOU’LL LIVE – MEADOWTOWN IS MOVING IN. Below the word IN, a fair-haired man, woman and child gazed smilingly in profile towards a trim bungalow in the middle distance.

The Doctor got out and looked over the field of churned soil, seeded with neat rows of poured-concrete foundations. In the car, Mrs. Alexander shuddered suddenly. Once the Doctor had asked Yaz to stay behind at the Book Asylum with Dr. Kaufmann and Austin, she’d insisted on coming along. 

“Probably the only chance I’ll ever get to set foot in that neighbourhood,” she’d said quietly.

“No need to worry,” Healy said now with a glance in her direction. “Even if the local population weren’t under the cybermat sway, I don’t suppose there’d be anyone hanging around out here. Not on the Fourth of July weekend.”

“It isn’t that, Mr. Healy. Just… the foundations at this stage remind me a little of a graveyard. And anyway, it’s those bug things we’re worried about finding out here.” Determinedly adjusting her hat, she climbed out of the car and joined the Doctor in looking over the site. Healy turned off the ignition, put on his Panama, and followed her.

Only one building had yet risen. It was a fair approximation of the little bungalow on the billboard, and a sign next to it said HOUSING EXHIBIT – LEASING OFFICE.

“How long ago did that one go up?” the Doctor asked.

“Spring,” answered Mrs. Alexander. “Soon as the frost was over, they started digging.”

“That foundation probably wasn’t the culprit, then,” mused the Doctor, “else the cybermats would have overrun the town a couple of months ago. Let’s look around where they’ve been putting in the other foundations, and the pipes.” She pulled out her screwdriver and began pointing it this way and that.

“It’s a…” Mrs. Alexander hesitated; “a kind of dowsing rod, too?”

“Once I found the frequency the cybermats were using, I set the sonic screwdriver to look for it, so yeah,” said the Time Lord, “guess you could call it a dowsing rod. Mind you, it tends to work better. Dowsing rods only work for users who really have psionic powers, and then the rod’s just kind of a… it’s like the feather in Dumbo. Wait, have they made that movie yet? The one with the flying ele—”

”Doctor,” Healy interrupted,”if that device of yours can track cybermats, as well as knock’em out cold... could it remote-control them as well? If we drew some of them out, we could see where they’re gathered without having to get too close.”

The Doctor considered his suggestion:

“Yes and no— that is, yes it could, but that might draw the attention of the cybermen as well. Besides, I want to get a look at the ship they’ve been in.”

The sonic screwdriver hummed.

“Oh good.” The Doctor began striding towards the sunken concrete slab the device had been pointed at. The other two hurried after her, picking their way across the trampled dirt. Mrs. Alexander accepted Healy’s help across the uneven ground, letting go his elbow as they reached the Time Lord who was staring into a fenced-off sewer.

* * *

Finding a ladder on a construction site had been comparatively easy; and the sewer opening was dark, and narrow, but mercifully free of any smell.

“Hasn’t been hooked up to the main yet,” Healy said. “She’s dry as a bone. Still—” he added, looking at them across the opening: “Perhaps I’d better go first. I mean, I’m the man— and of the three of us, I’m also the most expendable. The Doctor’s the only one who understands how these gizmos work, and you’re Austin’s mother.”

“Mr. Healy—” Doctor protested, but Mrs. Alexander laid a hand on the Time Lord’s arm:

“He’s right about you being the only one who knows how they work, Doctor. We can’t risk your being taken out of commission, even for a few hours.”

* * *

“Do you mind if I ask you something?” Yaz and the others were idling in the bookshop’s back room, having agreed that going up to Dr. Kaufmann’s flat might wake Bob, and no one wanted to have to calm him down again.

“Try me.”

“How...why did you decide to become a psychiatrist?”

“My father, and several other relatives, were doctors. Also I suffered a serious illness as a child. If I had not found a peculiar fascination in its details, it would have been suffering and nothing more. I decided I wanted to understand how diseases worked. Later, at medical school, I remembered how my thoughts had been my salvation during that period, and decided I wanted to know how the mind worked.”

“Did anyone try to argue? Try to say you should be having kids instead?”

“Not really. As I told you, I’d had a serious illness. Tuberculosis of the spine,” and Yaz noticed for the first time how ramrod-straight the psychiatrist carried herself, making the most of a height that could hardly have exceeded five feet. She wondered suddenly how much work had gone into that posture; she didn’t know much about medical techniques of the time but she imagined surgeries and back braces. “I tell you this,” Kaufmann continued gently, “not to inspire pity, but to answer your questions. You are a most direct young woman.”

“I’m — I’m sorry?”

“On the contrary, it makes me trust you, and by extension the Doctor, a little more.”

* * *

“This is wrong. So many cybermats, and not a cyberman in sight.”

“Could they be buried deeper?” Mrs. Alexander glanced up and down the sewage tunnel, looking for cracks in the cement.

“I’m no expert in concrete,” Healy offered, “but there’s a patch here that’s damp, not like the rest of this place.”

They looked at the Doctor expectantly.

“Sonic screwdriver’s not much good with concrete either.” She placed her palm against the surface. “You’re right about it being damp, though. Looks like someone patched this spot pretty recently.”

“Closing the barn door after the horses got out, maybe.”

“Did anyone see a shovel up there by the ladder?”

* * *

The Doctor gazed dispassionately at the familiar design of the capsule they’d found hastily buried under the concrete patch: the outer shell made of a bluish alloy that looked like steel but was not— not, exactly; a small porthole with a coloboma like a falling teardrop. Viewed from the front the device looked immaculate, but a single step to one side revealed the impact damage that had burst it like a grape.

As an explanation for recent events, it had but two glaring flaws: the whole thing was not large enough across to hold a single cyberman, and the Doctor’s increasingly-puzzled passes with the sonic could awaken no response from its electronics.

“No, no, the CPU’s dead,” she muttered.

“Doctor.”

“So who’s driving the cybermats?”

“Doctor,” repeated Mrs. Alexander, and she pointed: “They’re driving themselves right now, and they are swarming like junebugs.”

“Hang on a bit—” the Doctor fiddled with the sonic, returning it to the “knock out cybermats” frequency she’d bookmarked earlier. The swarm fell still around them.

Healy was muttering something under his breath. Mrs. Alexander couldn’t tell if he was swearing or praying; either way it seemed to involve the names of a lot of saints. Her mother and aunts would have been shocked, but she’d heard worse.

“The little— well, anyhow, it bit me.” Healy held out his left arm, a cybermat latched on like a tick just below his rolled-up shirtsleeve; as they watched it too fell inert and clattered to the ground.

“Healy,” said the Time Lord, “I am so sorry.”

“How fast will the drugs work?” Healy’s face was pale.

“PDQ. The good news is, it likely didn’t have time to give you a big dose. You should be all right in an hour or two.” 

“Just don’t let me do anything... hurtful. Making a fool of myself is all right, that’d be nothing new—“ he broke off, and his craggy features suddenly relaxed.

“Are you all right?” asked Mrs. Alexander anxiously. Healy blinked his blue eyes, and gave her a smile that in other circumstances might have been reassuring:

“Nothing to worry about, Maminka.”


	7. Chapter 7

“Nothing to worry about,” Healy repeated, patting Mrs. Alexander’s hand. “Just a scratch. Caught my arm on the staircase railing.”

“I’m—“ she caught herself. “We should get you home anyway so I can take a look at it.”

“But you take so few nights for yourself, Maminka, you shouldn’t have to miss the movie.”

An intuition seemed to strike Mrs. Alexander:

“It’s all right,” she said. “I only came because it was Dish Night.”

Healy laughed.

“Have you no interest in seeing William Powell, then?”

“He’ll just have to wait.”

“I’ll bet he will. He’s sitting by the phone right now, I’ll be bound, wondering why Klondike four-ten-o-nine never calls.”

* * *

“Yaz, Austin,” Dr. Kauffman announced: “I simply must get dressed properly, and I’m sure you two would like some breakfast. We’ll just have to risk waking Bob when we go upstairs.” She placed a finger to her lips and the three of them crept up to the flat. 

The floor was linoleum patterned with a Greek-key design, and the faded wallpaper was printed with stylized bamboo. Yaz wondered which had been there first, as it hardly seemed likely the same person could have deliberately chosen both. She could hear Bob’s snoring from the couch in the sitting room; it continued as Dr. Kaufmann returned from her bedroom in a shirtwaist dress and some lipstick. These apparently met some local standard of formality, for she murmured cheerfully:

”That’s better. I felt quite like an invalid having to receive visitors in that old dressing-gown.” She took an apron down from a hook on the side of a wall cupboard. Everything in the tiny kitchen, Yaz observed from the doorway, seemed to have a spot where it hung up or sat concealed behind a panel. The bookseller appeared to believe in efficient small-scale living. “Are scrambled eggs all right? With toast?”

”Toast alone would be fine.”

”And yourself, Austin? The little boy peered around Yaz in the doorway.

”Scrambled, please, Dr. Kaufmann.”

”Good— as it happens, that’s the only way I know how.”

They ate at a little table in the sitting room; whispering at first and then speaking more freely as Bob seemed to be undisturbed by their presence (both Yaz and Kaufmann had checked that he was merely unconscious and that his breathing and heart rate were normal.) On the floor, Bed daintily ate a spoonful of scrambled egg from a saucer, scooping it up morsel by morsel with her paw. Dr. Kaufmann had found a minuscule jar of Robertson’s marmalade in some nook; as Yaz spread it on her toast, the older woman commented:

“I lived in Britain for a time and became rather fond of marmalade. Though I fear I never acquired a taste for your other traditional foods, like Bovril or Marmite.”

 Yaz smiled in spite of herself. Then she glanced towards the front windows, their blinds still down:

“I wonder when the Doctor and the others will be back.”

“It _is_ frustrating not to be out there with them, I know. Thank you for holding the fort.”

“You wanted to go too,” Yaz observed.

”So did I,” Austin said through a mouth full of toast. “But I’m _little,”_ he added in an aggrieved tone. A cheering thought struck him: “Also someone had to guard the man on the couch.”

“Very true. All the same, I could wish Healy had a car that seated more passengers.”

”How long have you known him?” Yaz asked, trying to take her own mind off her concern for the Doctor’s safety. The Time Lord was a genius with experience beyond human comprehension, but she also quite frequently lacked all common sense. Talking about Lt. Healy and Mrs. Alexander might reassure her with the reminder that the Doctor wasn’t tearing around unaccompanied.

“Only a short while, though I’ve come to know his tastes in reading quite well.”

“Which books does he—“

“Ah, no. Bookseller-bookreader confidentiality.”

“Is that even a thing?”

“It is for me.”

There was a sound at the back of the building and all three of them leapt to their feet. Dr. Kauffman made for her bedroom and peered through the window:

“It’s them,” she said with audible relief. Yaz looked over her shoulder and watched Healy’s car pull up in the alleyway. After a moment the engineer got out and opened the door for Mrs. Alexander and the Doctor. 

“There’s something different about his manner— oh no...” Dr. Kaufmann turned around, slipped past Yaz and hurried down the back stairs.

* * *

Healy was bustling about, livelier in the grip of illusion than Yaz had yet seen him in their brief acquaintance. In the light of morning she could see his rawboned face was pink and freckled with recent sunny days. Mrs. Alexander and Austin’s skin was a warmer brown than the incandescent light-bulbs had shown by night, and Dr. Kaufmann’s dark hair had a delicate silver streak running through it. 

“We found the capsule that brought the cybermats, but no cybermen, much less any cyber-controller,” the Doctor was explaining. “And as you can see, the Lieutenant got a dose of the hypnotic drugs, though with any luck it’ll wear off soon.”

“Who’s this Lieutenant you keep talking about—” Healy began, then beamed at Austin, peeping round the doorpost: “Sorry Danny boy,” he said, scooping the child up in his arms, “Maminka and I came home early and you won’t get the chance to drive Mrs. Kelly crazy.” Here he nodded and winked at Dr. Kaufmann. “But I can read you two chapters of _Ivanhoe_ before bedtime to make up for it.” Austin gave a puzzled glance first at Healy, then at his mother, who reached out and took him from Healy.

“Why is he calling her that?” Yaz whispered. “‘Cos it’s Czech for “Mum,” right? Why isn’t the TARDIS translating it? I didn’t even think Healy was Czech.”

“He’s not. The word isn’t translating, because he’s using it to mean something slightly different than “Mum.”” 

“He thinks you’re his stepmother,” Dr. Kaufmann interrupted, turning to Mrs. Alexander. “I’m heard him refer to her by that term. He uses “Ma,” when speaking of his birth mother. Danny must be his little brother.” She glanced thoughtfully in the direction of Yaz and the Doctor: “Whatever gives you your facility with languages doesn’t seem to translate terms when they’re used as personal names.”

“But what do we do with him in the meantime?”

“Could you and Austin bring yourselves to play along until he comes to himself? I don’t believe he’s any danger, and he’s happier and therefore calmer believing himself to be living in the past with his family than he might be in some other scenario.”

“But why is he thinking this at all?” asked the Doctor of nobody in particular. “Why are the cybermats giving their victims such random delusions? It’s like they drug them and then just.. leave them to their own devices. What’s the motive?”


	8. Chapter 8

_Rebecca again looked forth, and almost immediately exclaimed, “Holy prophets of the law! Front-de-Boeuf and the Black Knight fight hand to hand on the breach, amid the roar of their followers, who watch the progress of the strife—Heaven strike with the cause of the oppressed and of the captive!”_

Healy was, as he’d promised, reading to Austin from a copy of _Ivanhoe_ he’d taken from the bookstore shelves, and the child, despite having been dropped into the story halfway through, was listening with apparent interest to Scott’s description of the assault on Torquilstone, where most of the cast seemed to be imprisoned.

“I don’t know if I ought to laugh or cry,” Mrs. Alexander said, watching the pair.

“We can redirect Healy to some other train of thought,” the Doctor began, but Austin’s mother shook her head:

“He said not to let him do anything embarrassing or dangerous, and this isn’t, really. Dr. Kauffman was right—it’s keeping him calm and happy while you work on that radio.”

* * *

Bed was curled up on the arm of Dr. Kaufmann’s sofa; through half-closed eyes she kept Bob under careful observation. Yaz had offered, as a good guest, to wash the dishes from breakfast, and had ensconced herself in the tiny kitchen to do so. She’d had a secondary motive, which was to position herself close enough to a window to keep a watch on the street outside. At present it stood quiet, but that only fed her curiosity and unease. What delusions were the locals acting out in scattered locations around town?

Elsewhere in the apartment she could hear Kaufmann opening and shutting cupboard doors and boxes and humming to herself as she did so. When Yaz finished putting away the dishes, she went and found the flat's owner examining a small bottle marked _iodine_. There were scissors and a roll of bandage lint on a table beside her.

“I’ve been trying to prepare for eventualities," she told Yaz. "Mostly by getting out the first-aid kit.” Yaz nodded.

"Best to be ready for anything."

"And in any case," Dr. Kaufmann added, "I wish to feel useful, and I'm not handy with radios like the Doctor."

"You could go down and help keep an eye on Healy.”

Dr. Kaufmann grimaced, then blushed and smiled awkwardly.

"Oh," said Yaz. The other woman shrugged.

"I don't think there is much room for me in his present delusion," she said.

* * *

“Bedtime, old man.” The chapter had concluded with Rebecca pondering the endemic prejudice against her people, and striving to resist her attraction to Wilfrid. Neither theme, perhaps, was as interesting to an eight-year-old as the battle had been, but Austin had listened patiently. At the mention of “bedtime,” however, he rebelled:

“No it’s not,” he pointed out. “It’s morning.”

Healy rubbed his eyes.

“So it is. Silly of me. Well, what shall we do today, Danny boy?”

Austin looked pensive. He was, in fact, trying to think what Healy’s real brother would have suggested under the circumstances, with the difficulty that he was unsure just what circumstances the man was envisioning. He supposed that since Healy was an adult, his brother must have been a kid a very long time back; perhaps before movies and cars.

“We could go see if the knife-grinding man is there?” he offered, suddenly thinking of something that might have existed when Healy was a boy.

“The knife-grinding man?” Healy repeated.

“With his horse and cart,” Austin continued with more confidence. Everyone had used horses and carts back then. Healy looked puzzled, and laid a hand on the boy’s forehead:

“You feeling all right, Danny? Since when have you been hopped-up for carts?” Austin, realizing his misstep, remained silent, but the engineer continued:

“Why, you’ve never been interested in anything slower than a racing-car. I don’t s’pose you’ll be happy till you can get into the cockpit of a—” Healy stopped. He blinked. Then he pressed his knuckles against his mouth and looked at Austin.

“Are you feeling all right—” Austin stopped himself before he could address Healy as “Mister.” The man, he realized now, was looking _through_ him and something like a faint whimper was coming from his throat. Austin squirmed and looked around:

“Mama?” he whispered, sensing this had become a situation for adults to deal with.

* * *

“Well anyway, it’s good that _one_  of our doctors is an actual medical doctor.” Yaz thought Dr. Kaufmann might appreciate a change of topic, but hesitated before wading back into the personal: “You told me before why you got into medicine. Why the switch to books?”

“The short version,” the former psychiatrist sighed, “is that one can suffer over experiences not one’s own. That is the wonder and the problem of being a human. But I could only bear so much.”

”Like compassion fatigue, you mean?”

”A good term for it. Compassion can be a kind of combat.”

Yaz’s contemplation of this statement was interrupted by a low, keening sound from the ground floor. It took her a moment to realize it was human, and longer to recognize Healy’s voice. Dr. Kaufmann, by contrast, was off like a shot and was already at her friend’s side by the time the younger woman reached the bottom of the stairs.

Mrs. Alexander had her arms around her frightened son, and both she and the Doctor were gazing aghast at the engineer. Healy was no threat, Yaz could see that right away. Whatever had gone wrong, he was the only one hurt by it. Then she recalled Dr. Kaufmann’s words about empathetic suffering. She edged towards the Doctor.

“What happened?”

“Healy must have shifted to a different memory: one involving the loss of his brother, I’d guess.”

 


	9. Chapter 9

Healy was seated, face buried in his hands. He moaned again and gave a long shudder, seemingly oblivious to anyone else in the room, but as Dr. Kaufmann touched his shoulder he looked up into her face. Another moment and the grief had slid from his features, replaced by a kind of puzzled admiration:

“Gentle maiden—“ he breathed.

“I’m really not.”

“Gracious lady, then.” Healy blinked, then continued with the same grave courtesy: “Forgive these wet eyes. You did not occasion them— indeed I can’t recall now what did.”

”What’s going on?” Yaz asked in as quiet a voice as she could muster.

”I think he fell straight from a happy memory, to one about his brother’s death,” the Doctor murmured. “Possibly in an airplane.” Yaz recalled the framed poem Healy had kept with the photograph of his family. “But now his mind seems to have fled to an entirely different setting.”

“He thinks he’s in the story he was reading me,” Austin whispered in realization. He pointed to Dr. Kaufmann: “He thinks you’re Rebecca.”

An expression of deep discomfort crossed the bookseller’s face.

“Doctor,” whispered Mrs. Alexander. “This really has gone too far. Can’t someone wake up the poor man?”

“That would be Dr. Kauffman’s area of expertise,” the Doctor said. Dr. Kaufmann glared at her but the Time Lord continued: “And he does know and trust you better than he does anyone else in this room.”

“I’ve only known him two months.”

“I think you know perfectly well that’s more than enough time for two people to bond— if they’re going to bond.” The Doctor gave her most encouraging smile. “Dr. Kaufmann,” she said. “You’ve got this.”

Hesitating only a moment more, Dr. Kauffman turned back to the engineer.

“Mr. Healy. Look at me.” Healy did. Yaz, looking on, guessed that in that moment she, the Doctor, Austin and Mrs. Alexander vanished from his purview and consciousness.

“Lady, by the laws of chivalry to which I am sworn—“

“No, Mr. Healy,” his friend said firmly. “I need you to remember what’s going on.”

“This is the time for action, not speech,” Healy urged. “An the castle be surrounded, I am duty-bound to—“

“This is no castle. Mr. Healy— Walter— look about you.”

Her patient searched the room with his eyes, which were steady but a bit glazed. His glance lingered on the bookshelves:

”No castle, but a monastery!” he exclaimed.

”No, Walter,” Kaufmann replied. “Look carefully, and ask yourself whether this room really looks to be of the medieval period. Please,” she added. “Try to see what’s really here, and only that.”

Healy gave her a look of appeal, but turned and focused his attention on the nearest shelf.

”Read the spines.” 

Yaz could see the man’s lips move slightly as he read off the titles of books; understanding, pained but calm, dawned gradually on his face, and at last he turned to his guide with a sad but sane look.

”Do you know me now?” Healy took her hand and nodded:

”You’re Dr. Kauffman, owner of this bookshop. I don’t know what came over me before— no, it was the cybermats, wasn’t it? I hope I didn’t louse anything up.” 

”You said and did nothing you need be ashamed of; But my dear friend— you were far, far away. I’m glad you’re back with us.”

“Seeing what’s really there—” The Doctor smacked herself on the side of the head. Startled, everyone glanced in her direction and she began to explain:

“We found cybermats—a broken pod that could have brought them to Earth centuries ago—but no Cybermen. This isn’t an invasion, it’s a—a toxic-waste leak. The cybermats are just follwing their most basic programming and capturing humans, but you were right, Yaz – their victims are just wandering around at random. No one’s actually inputting any orders to them, because there are no cybermen around here. Which means,” she finished with a triumphant look: “I can take Healy’s suggestion, remote-control the cybermats, and order them to stop attacking people.”


	10. Chapter 10

“Doctor?”

”Yes?”

”How long do you think it’ll take’em to get the townsfolk out here?”

”Well, we left them with a group that had cars. That should speed things up considerably. Just a question of making sure everybody’s on-board with the idea. And packing the picnic coolers of course.”

”You wouldn’t want a lot of people to come all the way out here with no food,” Healy agreed. He and the Doctor were seated on the hood of his car, parked looking out over the shoreline. Nearly noon, it was already too hot to sit in the vehicle, even with the windows rolled down. “You'd end up with a riot, at the very least.”

“D’you think we out to have put up some decorations?” asked the Doctor, glancing about. Healy followed her gaze.

“If all goes well, they’ll hallucinate that we’ve put up flags and bunting anyway,” he said eventually. “My only worry is that they might not listen to Doc Kaufmann or the Alexanders— your officer ought to be able to move’em, from what I’ve seen, but the Doc’s pretty quiet around crowds, and well, I don’t know how well the cybermats’ drugs override prejudices. Unless they see Mrs. Alexander and Austin as somebody else from their memories, like I did,” he added wistfully.

”About that— I’m so sorry that happened to you, Healy,” said the Time Lord, patting his hand. Healy looked out at the sea.

”Don’t think there’s anything you could’ve done to foresee or prevent it. And I don’t know if I’ll be able to look Doc Kaufmann in the face anytime soon. She must’ve felt like I was making fun of her.”

”She knows you weren’t — it was she who brought you out of the trance, after all.” The Doctor smiled: “As for our friends— they've got Bob with them too, now he’s awake. And they were winning the neighbours over when we drove out here to the picnic spot.”

”Doctor, three hours ago a bunch of those neighbors mistook Bob for a sea bass. I hope to God Officer Kahn is keeping things under control.”

“I trust her abilities. What time is it, now?”

Healy looked at his wristwatch:

”Just gone noon,” he replied. “Think we ought to begin setting up the bonfire?”

* * *

“Why yes, you probably ought to bring some beer,” Bob cheerfully answered the men gathered around him.

”Is that really a good idea, do you think?” hissed Yaz to Mrs. Alexander. “They’re already stoned on alien drugs. Bet those don’t mix well with alcohol.”

”You saw the fuss that lady made when you told her she didn’t need to make any Waldorf salad,” whispered the other woman.

”Good point,” Yaz admitted. “Hang on—” Struck by inspiration, she strode past Bob into Al’s Luncheonette and made for the kitchen in the back, returning with an armful of soda bottles. “I’ve got the beer,” she sang out cheerfully. “No, no opening it yet. Save it for the picnic. Bob,” she added in an undertone, “So far as everyone is concerned, _this_  stuff is beer until the end of the evening.”

She was not entirely sure whether Bob had entirely sobered up yet from the cybermat venom, but he either believed her story or knew enough to play along, and soon she and Mrs. Alexander were exchanging looks of relief as they moved on with a pack of enthusiastic townsfolk in tow.

* * *

”Can’t say as how I like the idea of our crowd splitting up.” Healy, gathering driftwood, was still worried by this part of they’d plan they’d all agreed upon.

”They can’t all five of them ride in someone else’s car,” argued the Doctor, “and it’ll be easier to keep the picnickers on the same track if we’ve got several people marshalling them from different positions.” She looked at the wood they’d stacked in a neat pyramid on the sand. “Did you notice any seaweed down that way dry enough for kindling?”

* * *

Dr. Kaufmann was knocking on doors on the odd chance some people were delirious in their homes rather than wandering the streets. The few people she’d found, she invited to the Fourth of July Picnic on the beach and sent on their way to gather more guests. She was beginning to tire, however, and had resolved that the next person she found with a car was going to receive a request for a lift.

 Hearing conversation around the corner ahead of her, she picked up her pace.


	11. Chapter 11

A picnicking crowd was strung along the beach. As the Doctor and her companions had hoped, a festive atmosphere was prevailing, and several people were contriving to get tipsy on the cola and root beer they believed to be beer.

“Bet a lot of bartenders wish they could do that,” Yaz commented.

Mrs. Alexander still looked anxious as she gazed up and down the beach, shading her eyes against the sunlight which was now strong enough that even her hat couldn’t fully cut the glare.

“I still don’t see Doc Kauffman. She ought to be here be now.”

Healy picked himself off the blanket he’d spread for them on the sand.

“I’ll go have a look,” he said.

“I’ll help,” Bob added. Despite her worry, Mrs. Alexander could not help exchanging a smile with Yaz and the Doctor as the engineer loped off down the beach, the younger man hurrying to keep up with him.

“That one’s fond of somebody.”

“I’ll say,” the Doctor agreed. “Bob’s got a crush you can see from space.” The other woman glanced at her with a mildly scandalized expression.

”I meant Mr. Healy likes Miss— I mean, Dr. Kaufmann.”

“Who was dropping hints to me this morning she feels the same way,” said Yaz. “I wish they’d both just come out with it. Or all just come out with it,” she added, watching Healy and Bob disappear among the crowd.

“What’s everybody talking about?” asked Austin.

”I’ll explain it to you later,” Mrs. Alexander said.

* * *

The Doctor turned her head:

“I hear shouting—“ she began. Out of the rhubarb of voices in the distance, a chant began to precipitate:

“THE BRITISH ARE COMING! THE BRITISH ARE COMING!”

“Wait, _what_?!” Yaz had a sudden, terrible thought. The Doctor voiced it:

“Fourth of July party— down by the beach— someone must’ve said the words ‘two if by sea,’ and next thing you know the idea went viral that the town has to fight off a British invasion, and not the good, musical kind.”

“And you and I sound pretty British. Even the TARDIS translation circuit can’t change that, can it?”

“Worse luck—“ moaned the Doctor. “Kauffman learned her English in the UK before she came here, and we left her on her own in town.”

Austin was standing on his toes and craning his neck to see the approaching crowd, and his mother caught his hand, ready to pull him out of the way, but where? They’d picked their position for its view of the crowd, not for easy defence or escape. The Doctor went to Healy’s car, beckoning to the others. “Bit early, but I think we’d better take control of the cybermats now. And get in to the car. Just in case.”

* * *

Healy had been wandering through the crowd of hysterical beachgoers, looking this way and that in hopes of a glimpse of Dr. Kaufmann. When he, too, noticed the shouting, he turned back towards the road that led to the beachhead, grabbing Bob by the arm.

”Keep near the bottom of the dunes,” he said, gesturing towards the sandy slopes that lay between them and the new arrivals. Bob nodded silently.

* * *

Dr. Kauffman had, during the course of her various careers, found herself in quite a few tight spots (she had not been dreaming when she’d told Healy and Mrs. Alexander she’d consulted on some police cases), but she had never before been abducted; much less by people who thought she was an agent of George III. Based upon her experiences earlier in the day, she could have talked some sense into one of them, but when the delusional outnumbered the rational, there was nothing to be done. There was, she thought, one hope— by complying with her captors’ demands that she “take them to where the British would be landing,” she was still taking them where the Doctor needed them to be; and an idea had struck her along the way:

“The local farmers,” she’d said carefully, “would have been taken quite off-guard. Look at those sleepy little farms out there, with no one to warn them.” 

“No one to warn’em, eh?!”

As her captors had begun chanting that the British were coming, Dr. Kaufmann had prayed that any chance they’d recruit more locals to their point of view would be offset by the sheer impossibility of taking the Doctor and her friends off-guard, now that they were making such a racket.


	12. Chapter 12

“Doctor, I know you’re big on ethics and all,” Yaz began, “but if the townsfolk have the cybermats already installed, and you can control the cybermats, what’s wrong with using that to control the people just long enough to stop them from attacking each other? We already took advantage of their suggestible state so we could get them all in one place in order to help them? I’m not seeing much difference.”

The Doctor grimaced and sighed.

“It’s not an ethical issue, I’m afraid --it’s a technical one. The sonic screwdriver just isn’t a sophisticated enough controller to direct the cyber-implanted humans. Otherwise I would have just used it to get’em all out here on the beach.”

“Tax our tea, will you?!” yelled someone in one of the approaching cars.

“Meanwhile the new arrivals are not only potentially violent, but I’m not sure of their grasp on Revolutionary War history, either,” the Doctor muttered.

“Well,” said Mrs. Alexander, “You’ve just got to come up with the right story to soothe them down. You managed it before. They think they’re Paul Revere, can we convince’em one of us is Washington?”

* * *

Signaling to Bob to wait where he was, Healy crept up the dune and peered over the top at the dirt road just on the other side— so close that dust, rather than distance, was the only difficulty he faced in observing the approaching cars. As it was, he could make out Kaufmann in a front passenger seat. From her expression he guessed she was trying to calculate her chances of getting the side-door open and jumping to safety; the car was not driving at top speed, but it was going fast enough he prayed she wouldn’t make the attempt.

The young driver, whether through military inexperience or his delusional state, evidently feared no ambush from the grasses at the side of the road: rather than keeping to the center he drove in what, on a better-marked highway, would have been the right-hand lane. Healy was tempted to come out and try to stop the vehicle, but he and Bob were quite unarmed; there would be little they could do even they did succeed in bringing this new cavalcade to a temporary halt, and he wasn’t sure they’d spare a couple of pedestrians. He recalled Yaz and the Doctor’s advice to redirect.

* * *

“‘Oh look, it’s General Washington?’ _That_ was your plan to divert their attention, Doctor?”

“Be fair— it did work,” the Time Lord retorted, but she looked a little sheepish.

“Yes, but now that random bystander thinks he’s George Washington, and he and the townsfolk have us prisoner.”

“No this could be good though.”

“How?!” hissed Mrs. Alexander.

“At least now all the townspeople are united in one common delusion. They’re not going to fight among themselves while I figure a way out of this.” 

Healy, not twenty feet away, had reached a similar conclusion, at least regarding the unity that now reigned among the townsfolk.

”Bob,” he murmured, “Stay here. I’m going to try if they’ll accept a British surrender.”

“What if they won’t?”

“That’s why I’m telling you to keep out of sight,” said Healy, and he stepped forward, muttering to himself: “how do you like your blue-eyed boy Mister Death—”

A shot rang out.

The angry townsfolk froze and looked about, at last perceiving a group of dark-skinned, uniformed servicemen, their sergeant still holding his revolver pointed straight up. “Now that I got your attention,” he said, “What seems to be the trouble?”

“Party just got a little out of hand, Sergeant,” said the Doctor, looking about steadily at the people who surrounded her and her friends. “Thanks for calming things down.”

Yaz held her breath.

“Yes, good job, sergeant,” echoed one of the men who moments before had thought the British were invading. Yaz glanced towards Dr. Kaufmann and saw she’d been released. Healy was embracing her, visibly relieved that she was unharmed and that he hadn’t had to throw himself in front of any bullets after all. Visibly embarrassed, too, that he’d come so close to it. Nearby, Bob still hovered, unsure what exactly was going on now.

“Dad!” Austin was scampering towards the soldiers, he mother right behind him. Sergeant Alexander holstered his revolver, scooped up his son in his arms and turned to his wife. When he’d finished kissing her, he looked around at the beach, the Doctor and Yaz, and the others with them and asked:

“I found the note you left at the house, Lilah— what the hell’s been going on?”

* * *

Ten minutes later, with Sgt. Alexander brought up to speed, the Doctor waved her screwdriver. The cybermats moved down the beach in a shimmering carpet, and trundled straight into the bonfire where they burst and crackled silver. The crowd cheered what they took for an early display of fireworks.

“A Fourth of July picnic to remember,” said the Doctor. “Except that most of the people here won’t. Well, not with any accuracy.”

“They’ll think they overdid it on the beer,” Mrs. Alexander said, and the Time Lord nodded.

“Things should settle down pretty quickly now that all the cybermats are gone. I suppose none of you will want to stir them up again.”

“Is that a request, or an order?” asked Dr. Kaufmann.

“Neither. I don’t care if you do tell people what happened. But I’m afraid they’re unlikely to believe you. Humans— simultaneously the most gullible and the most cynical creatures in this galaxy.”

“Who’s being cynical now?” Yaz asked sharply.

* * *

It was dark now, and the party on the beach was beginning to break up. Healy returned from driving the Doctor and Yaz back to the TARDIS, parked his car and picked his way through the dunes down to where Kaufmann still sat by the crackling bonfire with the Alexanders. Austin was curled up asleep between his parents. He’d had a very long day.

”Mind if I join you?” Healy asked. Dr. Kauffman patted a spot beside her and Healy seated himself, exchanging salutes with Sgt. Alexander as he did so. “Saw our associates back to their... transport.” He shook his head. “You’ll never believe what it looked like, and you lived through today.”

”Fiery chariot?” the psychiatrist asked. The engineer shook his head:

”Couldn’t be further from the mark.” 

”You can tell us next time you see us,” Mrs. Alexander said. “Right now I think it’s time Sam and I got Austin home; I guess you can see Dr. Kauffman back to her shop, Mr. Healy?”

”I do believe,” Healy said, after the Alexanders had left, “they deliberately left us alone together.”

”Where’d Bob go?” Dr. Kaufmann smiled in the firelight. 

 “Had to send him away in disappointment, I’m afraid.” Healy cleared his throat nervously. “I told him I was much too old for him.”

“That was the only objection, was it?”

“Well,” Healy shrugged with exaggerated carelessness. “I didn’t want to hurt Bob’s feelings, but he’s not my type. I mean let’s face it, he’s no Herbert Marshall.”

“You’d date Herbert Marshall?”

“Hm, well I suppose he’s a bit too old for me.” 

“How about Spenser Tracy?” asked Dr. Kaufmann archly.

“I’d feel too much like I was looking in a mirror,” Healy winked at her. “Besides,” he sighed, folding his arms, “All these people are on the other coast.”

“Mr. Healy.”

“I’d probably be better off looking closer to home.” Dr. Kaufmann folded her arms as well and looked back at him in silence.

“You doing anything tomorrow night?” Healy asked.

* * *

_September, 1948_

“Dr. Kaufmann,” said Austin slowly, “I got an A+ in English. Teacher said my story showed a lot of imagination.”

“That’s wonderful, Austin. What’s wrong?”

“I sort of cheated, didn’t I? Because I didn’t imagine the Doctor and Yaz and the cybermats.”

“You wrote it down. And sometimes the only way to make people listen to the truth is to pretend it’s a story.”

Austin thought about this.

“I ought to write more stories, then.”


End file.
